Cirrus Des Aigles, centre, won the first Champion Stakes to be run at Ascot in 2011 with Christophe Soumillon aboard. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images

Cirrus Des Aigles is in "perfect" condition as he attempts to recover his Champion Stakes crown at Ascot on Saturday, his trainer reported on Tuesday. Corine Barande-Barbe added that Christophe Soumillon has been booked to ride once more, having won twice on the horse in the past month.

When the concept of Champions Day at Ascot was first dreamed up, its creators could not have envisaged Barande-Barbe being among its key early supporters but her gelding has become a standing dish on the card, winning the feature race in 2011, when its prize money had been raised past £1m for the first time, and then chasing home Frankel last year. Once rated the best horse in the world, Cirrus Des Aigles will be a reliable source of interest and international glamour on Champions Day for the third year in a row, even as soft ground keeps other stars in their boxes.

"I don't know what else is running," Barande-Barbe said from her base in Chantilly, north of Paris. "You must always respect the opposition, but I think he might win.

"He's very well, just perfect. I think he's on his way to the top." Backing up the trainer's confidence, bookmakers offer no better than 5-4 about Cirrus Des Aigles, though some had him on 16-1 just a month ago.

At that point, he had not won for almost a year and the racing public had begun to think of him as a back number. A strained ligament sustained in Hong Kong in December had kept him on the sidelines for six months and the series of disappointments that followed suggested he would not recover his former talent.

Even now, after back-to-back successes, he remains an object of suspicion for some, since neither of those wins came in a top-class race. But the manner of his victory at Longchamp on Arc weekend was redolent of peak-form Cirrus Des Aigles and Barande-Barbe is satisfied.

"I had never doubted him but you never know. He is getting a bit older but finally he is just the same as he was last year and the year before."

It is a pity that such a fine animal should be peaking as the European turf season ends but Barande-Barbe regards his year as "not really disappointing" and believes he has legitimate excuses for each beaten effort. "The first time out, at Saint-Cloud, he was not ready at all.

"Then he was fourth in the King George, which is a great race, very good horses, giving weight to three-year-olds, which is very hard. It was a bit long for him and a bit hard for him. If you remember, they were waiting for the rain and then it came after the race. So they were really not ideal conditions for him.

"Then, at Deauville, we maybe didn't have a bit of luck but he still put in a nice finish and was second. Next time, in the Grand Prix de Deauville, he had to come very early and the [extra] distance told a bit.

"After, I saw he was better and better and when he ran at Maisons-Laffitte, he was really near to his best.

"I think he will stay in training as long as he is happy to be. The main problem will be when he stops, because he is used to a lot of attention and a lot of events through the day, he plays with the girl rider in the morning. It might be a little depressing for him.

"It is the same with people: half the people don't work enough and the other half work too much. Me, I never go on holiday for more than a week and after four days, I miss my work."